


Infernum

by orphan_account



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Afterlife, Gang Rape, Hell, M/M, Non-Consensual Oral Sex, Psychological Torture, Seven Deadly Sins, Sexual Violence, Spitroasting, Threesome - M/M/M, Torture, Violence, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-27
Updated: 2019-10-31
Packaged: 2021-01-04 05:04:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 14,713
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21192041
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Noctis goes to Hell. His 'family' are there waiting for him. [Halloween Fic]





	1. Pati

**Author's Note:**

> this is probably the most fucked up thing i've ever written, so head the warning tags. i was inspired by near death experience reports, thus i wrote this hell--pun intended. happy halloween, kids.

Most people who experience death and live to tell the tale return with blissful experiences. Some say they were guided by the Astrals through the waves of the Beyond, and others insist they were lifted by angels. One or two might even report a seventh god—the god of the universe itself. They would weep at the recallations of sitting at the foot of its throne, desperately reaching out to touch its wondrous robes.

And yet, what Noctis sees is nothing like any of the aforementioned.

It is dark. Very dark. His memories are faint, but he definitely remembers sitting at the throne before things went black. He remembers lifting his hand adorning the ring to destroy Ardyn. After that, it is unclear, although he knows one thing for certain.

He is dead.

A sudden sadness clutches his heart. He’d never wanted any of this. Thus was his duty as the King of Kings to sacrifice his life for all, and he’d done so with a smile. So why is he kneeling here, in this pitch darkness, feeling the most agonising  _ loss?  _

It is as if someone poured black ink over his eyes. Noctis fumbles around, trying to grasp for something— _ anything  _ to grab onto. He can feel something like dirt under his hands, but there seems to be nothing else around. Was this how Ignis felt? Trapped in this never-ending chasm of darkness, suffocated by the need to see? Noctis lets out a whimper as he gets to his feet. He cannot just stay here, wherever he was. If he is dead, then this has to be the afterlife. Or, perhaps, a sort of tunnel that lead to his eternal happiness. Were the gods so cruel as to abandon him here and leave him to find it himself? He would curse them, though he knows that would do nothing.

Noctis walks for a long time. He trips and stumbles over the earth, and there is a slight metallic scent to it. Copper? Not quite, but close. It isn’t pleasant. Some ‘afterlife’ this was.

Then, he stops. Since he cannot see, it isn’t as if he has winded up somewhere new, but that is when a thought enters his mind. What if everything that had happened was a dream? A false memory he had conjured in his recent trauma? Was it just that he couldn’t cope with so many losses that his mind had snapped, conjuring this nonsense that seemed so real? If that was the case, where is he now? Had he fallen down a hole?

The king scoffs at his ridiculous pondering. Of course it’s real. No dungeon is  _ this _ dark. Noctis is dead and he has to come to terms with it. He knows that, had known since the moment Bahamut had told him that this was his fate, so why does he feel so sad?

He yearns for his father. Shouldn’t he be here? Noctis looks around, squinting to make out any shapes in the deep chasm. His father is nowhere to be seen, and neither is Lunafreya. Nobody is present besides himself. Panic sets in his chest, and Noctis breaks into a sprint. He has to get out of here. He has to find light, or a person, or any sort of warmth he can cling to. Anything will do. He falls several times yet gets back up with added resolution. The coppery earth cakes his nails by the time he finally sees something. There, in the distance, are two glowing lights.

At first, Noctis thinks they are eyes. Big yellow eyes that pierce into his very soul. Upon further notice, he discovers they are torches. A flickering flame sitting upon two wooden poles thrust into the dirt. Noctis spends some time studying them, but finds nothing of interest. They are simply old-fashioned torches in the middle of nowhere. He scowls at his useless discovery.

Despite his disappointment, Noctis is reluctant to leave them. There isn’t anything else in sight, so he sinks to the floor and has his back against one. The heat of the fire is gentle, and he sighs as it warms his head. 

He only then realises how cold this place is. Shivering, Noctis tugs at his torn and muddied suit. When he reaches his hands to his face, he jumps again at his beard. The squareness of his jaw is still foreign, too. It didn’t even matter to him much now. He had never  _ felt  _ thirty. His body might have aged, but his mind had only truly lived for twenty years. He laughs dryly at the thought. 

Well, as much as his life (or rather, death) sucks, he supposes others had it worse. Look at what had happened to poor Luna. Or Ignis, or his father, or—

A sudden glint catches his eye. 

Noctis jumps, though realises that it is merely a coin. It lies several feet away from him, only lit by the torches. Had that always been there? He gets up to grasp it between his fingers. It seems to be made of genuine gold, brittle and scuffed. Not too far away, he spots a second one. 

A trail of coins is laid before him. Wonderful, so now the gods were  _ taunting  _ him!

“Thanks for nothing,” he mutters only to them. Noctis grabs the torch he had been leaning against and yanks it out of the ground. He is grateful that it doesn’t resist. He swings it around, trying to see if it will light up the area further, but the same inky blackness swallows him whole. He sighs and uses the torch as his only guide, seeing as the Astrals are not going to do their job and escort him to his deserved peace. The trail leads on for a long time. Sometimes the coins are few and far in between, but Noctis begins to notice that they are growing in number.

He slowly passes entire piles of coins. He even sees a goblet amongst them, and the occasional jewel. He would stop to examine them if he isn’t so determined to get out of here.

Upon reaching the end, Noctis looks up to see an enormous mound of gold. He stabs the torch back into the soil so he can lean forwards. These coins are far more lustrous than the ones leading to them. These ones are polished brightly, encrusted by diamonds and rubies. Noctis cranes his neck to see that the pile extends to several feet into the air. As it grows higher, he then makes out the shape of what looked like a chair.

A throne? No, the coins are only shaped like one. What concerns him is the figure slumped on it.

There, lying gracelessly as if thrown,  _ Ardyn _ is on the mountain of gold. Noctis gasps and falls backwards. He grunts as his backside hits the ground. What is  _ Ardyn  _ doing here?! Shouldn’t he be gone for good? Noctis  _ knows  _ he destroyed him. That was the entire reason that he existed!

Ardyn does not move. Noctis cannot see his face from this angle, as he is draped like a towel on his stomach. He is wearing rags of his former Chancellor clothing. While Noctis can’t see his face, he manages to catch a glimpse of the many bruises littering the man’s skin. He cringes.

Is he dead? Even as Noctis stands as still as a stone, holding his breath in fear of awakening the beast before him, Ardyn is unresponsive. It is a bizarre sight. Noctis is far too used to seeing him walk with that irritating swagger, accompanied by his grandiose, theatrical gestures. If the king thinks hard enough, he can hear his voice in his head. He wishes he hadn’t, because he grows angry. Furious. Overwhelmed with rage. Ardyn shouldn’t be here. He should be rotting in the pits of Hell, or non-existent in its entirety. Was this even him? Or was this some sort of test given to him by the Astrals?

_ Very funny,  _ Noctis thinks as he inches closer. He reaches out a hand. He pokes Ardyn’s sleeve, and then begins to touch his skin when he becomes bold enough. The Accursed is as cold as ice. Fitting, seeing as his heart matched the simile.

When Noctis tries to pull away, Ardyn suddenly comes to life and grabs his wrist in an iron grip.

“I’ve been waiting for you,” his throaty voice says, coming out as a haunting rasp.

Noctis  _ screams. _

He sees Ardyn’s face at last, drenched in the ectoplasm of the Scourge. His eyes glow amber. When Noctis struggles, Ardyn’s grasp grows tighter. His fingers squeeze so hard Noctis is sure he is snapping his wrist, but then he releases him. He instinctively pulls at his Armiger, only to find out that, ah, it doesn’t work when he’s dead. He is trapped in this weird limbo dimension with Ardyn—or, some sort of mockery of Ardyn, he hoped. Watching as Ardyn clambers down from the gold pile, Noctis gets into a defensive stance.

“Oh, together again,” Ardyn drawls. He falls to the floor. “How I’ve  _ missed  _ you, dear Noctis!”

“What—” Noctis bites off, before trying to correct himself. “Why the fuck are _ you  _ here? You’re supposed to be dead!”

He realises that his words contradict his position. If  _ he  _ is dead, then so is Ardyn. Why have they wound up here, then?

“I am.” Ardyn confirms his accusation. “As are you. Do you not remember?”

Noctis forces down a thick glob of saliva stuck in his throat. “Of course I remember.” He isn’t too sure, now that he thinks about it. “But… this isn’t supposed to happen. I destroyed you. Why are you still—”

“Existent?” 

A smile creeps across Ardyn’s face. He assumes his usual posture, yet he is less bulky seeing as his clothes are so torn, and his many scarves are discarded. He remains in the cream shirt with the ridiculous collar and scraps of what his coat used to be. The ends are ratty and full of holes, as if he has dragged them through a mile of jagged rocks. The ooze dripping from his sockets fades to leave him looking as comely as he possibly could. Which was to say, not very.

“A soul is eternal, foolish boy. It cannot be aborted from the fabric of the universe. It is merely sent to a different location. In other words, right here.”

He gestures to the emptiness surrounding them. Noctis flicks his eyes to look around, but he never turns his head away from Ardyn’s mocking sneer. He might be dead, though he does not want to risk Ardyn leaping on him while he is distracted. 

“Where are we, then?” Noctis asks sharply.

The smile widens. “Haven’t you realised yet?”

The ground lets out a low rumbling noise. The floor vibrating beneath them, Noctis struggles to right himself as Ardyn merely laughs. His cackles are soon drowned out by the shattering roar of the earth giving way. 

As the floor splits, Noctis sees glowing cracks of magma. It bubbles and froths just below his feet. He tries to scramble for more stable footing, but he is tipped from the island he had clung onto and plunges into the molten rock.

It is not quite as Noctis imagined it. When he had seen such horrors in movies, a person would be consumed by lava in seconds, as if it were water. No, he found himself slowly sinking into the hot sludge, unable to scream as he felt it melt his skin and bones to nothing. His lower half completely submerged, he let out a strangled choke as Ardyn gripped him by the chin. His fingers bruised his jaw, a pleasant tickle compared to the magma below, and smirked.

“You’re in Infernum. In other words, Hell.”

Noctis does not recall whatever happened after that. He awakes to find that his body has miraculously recovered. There is not a single burn mark in sight. 

He had been thrown into lava! The very substance of nightmares! He wails as he rubs at his eyes. He tries so hard to get the horrific feeling of being charred alive out of his head, yet the memory is fresh. When he pressed his palms into his sockets too hard, he only sees the irises of Ardyn’s eyes glaring back at him. The face of the Devil above him, and the agony of fire beneath him.

He ends up curling into himself. The king sobs to himself, refusing to open his eyes. He does not want to see wherever he has landed up. He is back on solid earth again, and he can feel heat rather than the chilling air of the dark chasm, but it did not come across as inviting. There was the comforting warmth of a hearth, and there was the searing pain of a raw fire. This was the latter.

Was Ardyn—or whoever that was—right? Was he… in  _ Hell? _

That couldn’t be right. He’d done everything that was asked of him. He’d carried out his destiny like a good little pawn. Not once had he complained, or spat in the gods’ faces, or refused anything they demanded. So why was he here?!

When Noctis does eventually open his eyes, he is greeted by the sight of a stony wall. The ground is also stone. It is pleasantly cool to the touch, and Noctis presses his face against it. He only moves when the heat scorching his back becomes unbearable.

He regrets doing so.

Finding himself wishing for that void to return to him, Noctis is met with the vision of nightmares. A sight that only deranged religious leaders would warn about. He had never taken it seriously in his youth, because he felt that a place  _ could  _ not exist. Spread before him is an endless lake of fire. Perhaps, if someone had described it to him, he would have called such a vision cliche. This lake of fire is _ far  _ from cliche. It is so hot that its flames flicker blue at the edges, curling and licking at anything close enough to it. To Noctis’ horror, he sees that there are people in the lake.

Their wailing breaks his heart. It is not so much crying as it is howling—their pitiful chorus of agony carrying across to him like a dark choir. He can see them flailing their limbs, stumbling forth in an attempt to get out. Except, there is no end in sight. The lake is eternal.

The smell of cooked flesh is rancid. Noctis gets a mouthful of it when he turns, and immediately retches. He startles when blood falls out of his mouth. He runs his tongue across his teeth to rid himself of the taste. Instead, he only manages to get more of a meat flavour on his tongue. He then resorts to using his fingers to scrape it out, except that did nothing for him.

Perhaps worst of all was the asphyxiation. No matter how hard he tried, he felt like he was always fighting for breath. The smoke of the fire and the soot discarded from the ashes of dead bodies filled his lungs. It had all sounded so cheesy in movies and books, although it really  _ felt  _ like Hell. Fire came across as corny on pages, but right here, right now, Noctis would rather dive into a pit of ice than bear this for one more second.

“You mustn’t feel sorry for them down there.”

He looks up to see Ardyn has returned. He recoils, but there is not enough room on this ledge he is suspended on to get away.

The Accursed looks on at the scene in apathy. His face is blank, seemingly bored by the display. He does not look at Noctis as he then says, “Those burning eternally in the lake of fire are not to be pitied. What you see are murderers. Rapists. Child molesters. The greedy and the lustful, the arrogant and the damned. They deserve this torment in the eyes of the gods.”

“Like you?” Noctis spits. 

Ardyn glances at him in amusement. “Quite. Although the difference between myself and them, is that I never had a choice. The same could be said for you.”

His words hurt.

Noctis cannot argue with him, for he is correct. Both of them, while different in so many ways, are entangled in the woven thread of fate no matter how they felt about it. Noctis knows that Ardyn hadn’t been born evil, yet that didn’t excuse it. He had free will. He _ chose  _ to kill those innocents, chose to plunge a knife into Lunafreya’s abdomen and chose to doom the world to darkness. Even though the pit in Ardyn’s flailed soul begged for pity, Noctis would never give it to him. He belonged here. It brought him a gleeful sense of spite to know that Ardyn had wound up in Hell after all, but that didn’t explain why  _ he  _ was here.

“Then why am I here?” he finally asks. “Why am  _ I  _ in Hell?! I didn’t— I didn’t  _ do  _ anything!”

“Didn’t do anything?” Ardyn repeats. He crouches down on one knee, condescendingly giving Noctis a signature sneer. “My dear boy, you are the  _ bane  _ of my  _ existence.  _ You are the reason why I myself am here! If you hadn’t been born unto the world like the parasitic spawn that you are, then I could have—”

He cuts himself off to take a deep breath. He is trembling.

“You think I  _ asked  _ for any of this?”

“I couldn’t care less what you asked for. The fact is, I hate you. I  _ loathe  _ you. I detest you! I would have killed you sooner if I was able to, but bringing you down with me is the next best thing!” 

Ardyn cackles maniacally. He is back standing, and Noctis is looking up at him in shock. 

“You… you brought me here?!”

“As witty as always,” says Ardyn. “Yes, I did. The gods never sent you here. You might have banished me from the Beyond, yet I took hold of you and dragged you down to the pits of Infernum. You may be the Chosen King of Light, but  _ I  _ rule the darkness. Not even the Astrals can touch me here!”

Wheezing, Noctis grabs at Ardyn’s hand as he is hoisted into the air by the neck. Whatever breath he had managed to get before is cut off completely. He scrabbles uselessly, raking his nails across skin as his legs dangle. Ardyn does not even flinch as he proceeds to hold him over the edge.

For a moment, he thinks Ardyn might have given him a look of sympathy, though it is quickly warped into a face of evil. This man is no longer capable of feeling anything besides cruelty.

“Farewell for now, Noct. Not to worry, for I shall be seeing you very, very soon.  _ Down  _ you go!”

He is released from Ardyn’s grasp, screaming as he falls into the lake of fire.

* * *

It feels like an eternity by the time Noctis manages to clamber out. His entire body is scorched, his clothes having been disintegrated the moment he fell in. Soot and ash comes out of his mouth as he coughs.

It had felt like nothing he had ever felt before. It was just endless  _ pain!  _ The fire never stopped, only growing hotter and hotter and hotter. By the end of it, Noctis had screamed his throat raw. Now, just on the edge of the fiery pit, he lies naked and boiled beyond recognition.

He feels so pathetic. Small and scared, he trembles as the burning ebbs away.

Perhaps the worst part of it was not the flames, but the damned souls drowning beside him. While it was difficult to see when his eyes were quite literally melting, Noctis had the misery of seeing their faces up close. They were no longer human. Reduced to bones and rotting tissue, they cried and howled like tortured animals. Noctis wanted to reach out to comfort them, yet no matter how hard he tried, he could never reach. They were each trapped in their own bubble, never to feel the company of others again.

Of course, he has tried to call out to the Astrals. His prayers only fall on deaf ears. It was like Ardyn said—they could not touch them in this hellscape.

Noctis gets to his feet and trudges forth. There is not much to see besides the lake and the ashen ground, but he walks anyway. He has no other choice. His feet burn on the hot coals. While he is burned, he can feel his flesh regenerating only to be scorched anew by the surrounding incandescence. Could this truly be his eternity? Forever to suffer in the boiling lands of the Underworld? He doesn’t want to believe it. Surely, after everything he has done for mankind and the Astrals, they would not doom him to such a fate!

The king cries out in joy when his eyes spot something that isn’t red or orange. There, in the distance, is a land of blue.

He runs towards it. It looks so peaceful! So peaceful, so wondrous, that he is heavily disappointed when it ends up being a world tormented by torrential hail and snow. The glistening stars that had looked so beautiful from afar bite into his skin when he gets too close. And yet, Noctis continues until he is fully submerged, just glad to be out of the fire.

The feeling of relief lasts no longer than half a second. The coolness turns into a bitter frost, freezing the scorched flesh of his body. Noctis chokes on the air. It is so cold that he feels crystals forming in his lungs. Suddenly it becomes even harder to breathe, the oxygen being turned into liquid the longer he stays in this barren place. Noctis, unable to take the iciness any longer, crawls back to the volcanic land he had been in moments before. They are such a heavy contrast that it feels surreal. The heat serves to melt the ice clinging to him, but that shortly returns to scorching him once more. Noctis finds himself stuck in limbo, repeatedly jumping into the fray when the other became too much to bear. There was no relief. It was either too hot or too cold. Beyond that, even.

He throws his head back and screams, voice distorted by ash and frozen diamonds.

“Why have you forsaken me?” he howls to the heavens. They echo back, dark and foreboding. “What did I do wrong? What have I done to end up here?!”

He believes he cries for many hours by the time he has nothing else to say. He shouts the worst obscenities he can think of, no longer caring what the Astrals think of him. It cannot get any worse than this. They hated him this much to throw him here, or allow Ardyn to take him, so did it matter?

A pair of boots swim into his vision. Noctis does not have the strength to look up. He knows who they belong to.

“Poor thing,” comes Ardyn’s condescending taunt.

As Noctis collapses, he can just about see Ardyn’s tall frame. To his surprise, he is no longer wearing the rags he had adorned upon their first meeting here. It appears dark, but by the time he gets close enough, Noctis has already fainted.

He vomits again when he awakes.

There came the blood and some sludge he did not wish to identify. To his relief, Noctis finds that his body seems to have recovered from the hellish fire and ice and he was now lying on soft material. It feels so comforting that he digs his fingers into it. He is also no longer naked, wearing something akin to a royal garmant he might have worn when alive.

When he gets up, Ardyn is sitting across from him. 

He is wearing a black suit. Tailored to fit his body nicely, Noctis sees how slender he actually is without all those cloaks and scarves hiding him. Noctis expects to see some sort of armour, though only glittering rings adorn his fingers as well gold studs on his shoes. He sits on a lavish chair, one leg crossed and his head tilted. He is wearing a smile. Except, what he is wearing is not the most bizarre thing about his presence. Whatever he had been prior to this in favour of a handsome man, skin aglow with perfection and face sculpted by a fine artist. Noctis feels like he wouldn’t have recognised him if they weren’t so ‘well acquainted’. 

Why does he look like that? If he didn’t know any better, Noctis would say that Ardyn is beautiful. The only thing giving him away are his eyes.

They are dead.

“You’ve had quite the terrible experience, haven’t you?” says Ardyn.

Way to state the obvious. Noctis’ face hardens as he snarls. “Get away from me.”

Ardyn puts a hand to his chest in feigned hurt. “I pull you from the pit of fire and  _ this  _ is how you speak to me?”

“You’re the one that threw me in.”

The Accursed laughs. It is deep and grating, and Noctis feels the urge to cover his ears. When he tries, he finds that it does nothing to block the haunting sound out.

As he looks around, he finds them to be in a civil room. Decorated with antique furniture and ruby carpets, the smell of pine strong, Noctis is glad that he is at least somewhere tolerable rather than the lake or the dark void. He is lying on a bed. While it is nice to be on something that isn’t a burning ground, Noctis jumps up and scrambles away from it. He does not want to be anywhere near a bed in such a place. He can only imagine the horrors that could occur on it.

Ardyn snaps his fingers to get his attention. He is standing now, hovering near the wall. 

“I thought we could look back on your life together. There are some moments that I would be delighted to watch with you.”

Noctis refuses to look when some sort of black screen is summoned. It is not a television, but it could be deemed as close enough to one. It is large—much larger than any TV he had back at the citadel. It hovers in midair as Ardyn tries to rewind to the beginning as if it were a video tape.

He doesn’t want to see. He knows that Ardyn will pull up something horrific, some horrible moment that Noctis would prefer to die all over again than relive.

He gasps when he feels hands wrapping around his neck. “Oh, no, we’ll be having  _ none  _ of that.”

The room disappears. They find themselves back in the void, nothing surrounding them besides darkness. Noctis’ feet are shackled to the ground. He struggles only to trip, falling onto his knees.

“You needn’t be so worried,” Ardyn says again. He gestures to the large screen, the only part of the room that had not vanished. “I’ll only be looking at the parts I find the most interesting.”

Since it is Ardyn saying that, then it can only mean bad news. Despite that, Noctis is unable to close his eyes as the screen flickers to life. Why can’t he shut his eyes? He cannot even blink. Kneeling there helplessly, he watches on as Ardyn whistles as he rewinds to his teenage years.

Why was he looking back at his highschool experiences? Nothing of particular interest had happened that he imagined Ardyn would like. He had met Prompto, and various other things, but why would Ardyn be interested in that? Then, he cringes as he is met with a scene of a kid being pushed around by older peers.

Ardyn is laughing again. “Ah, so many people would be surprised that the Chosen King is not as kindly as he seems.”

Noctis remembers that day. He had been walking to class, only to see someone several years younger than him being bullied by teens in his year. Now, Noctis knew the difference between right and wrong. He  _ knew  _ the right thing to do would be to step in and help the kid out, though he hadn’t. A sudden guilt pierces his heart as he sees himself walking away, hands in his pocket and bangs over his eyes—not a care in the world.

The screen then cuts to more and more incidents. Kids being bullied, or being yelled at, and Noctis only ignores it as he mulls about his business. At twenty, he would have definitely intervened, so why hadn’t he back then? Did he not care?

He shivers as Ardyn is now lingering behind him, hands on his shoulder. He chuckles next to his ear.

“Yes, just like that.  _ That  _ is the Noctis I like to see.”

“No, I’m not like that,” Noctis hisses, tossing his head in the futile attempt to headbutt Ardyn. “I was—I wasn’t thinking clearly!”

“Excuses, excuses,” Ardyn tuts. “Alright then, how about this?”

In the next scenario, he is a tad older. Perhaps eighteen. Noctis flushes red in embarrassment as he is seen lying on his bed watching porn. What the fuck! Why is Ardyn showing him this?

On his laptop, there is a video of a woman having sex with a man. Nothing particularly strange or unusual about it. It still makes him feel humiliated, seeing as  _ Ardyn  _ of all people is watching it with him, a smile on his face. It grows more uncomfortable as the sex scene becomes rougher. The woman is crying out loudly.

“Ugh, turn it  _ off  _ ,” Noctis groans. He would shut his eyes if he were able.

“Why would I do that when you are clearly enjoying yourself? However,” Ardyn pauses to check his nails absentmindedly, “would you enjoy it as much if you knew that this woman is a victim of human trafficking? That she has no desire to be part of this act? That you are pleasuring yourself to her suffering? That you enjoy watching her being assaulted? You sadistic little  _ devil,  _ Noct.”

Shaking his head, Noctis sobs. “No, no! I didn’t—I didn’t  _ know!” _

It is the truth. If he had known such a thing, he never would have clicked on it! He cries out in despair as the woman’s agony is wrapped around his heart. He feels every moment of fear and pain as she is exploited for these sickos’ pleasure. Noctis does not even know her, yet he experiences her misery tenfold. The expression of enjoyment on her face fades to a horrible, soundless scream. It is so loud that he thinks his ears are bleeding.

He flinches when Ardyn rests his chin on his shoulder, arms wrapped tightly around him. 

“There is nothing wrong with that. Why  _ not  _ enjoy it? It was given to you, yes? Why not take what you want, when you want it?”

No, he is not that evil. Noctis might not be an angel, but he knows he isn’t sadistic.

Thankfully, the pornography flashback ends and it now moves on to his daily life. Ardyn skims through the boring parts, jumping ahead to little moments that perplex him at first. At first, it didn’t seem like anything abnormal, but then Noctis caught the expressions on his face.

Small scowls. The roll of his eyes when someone asks for help, or when he has to get up early. The silent cursing he directs at his father when they argue. The bitterness in his chest during his lessons. The piercing glares he shoots at people behind their backs, or brushing them off when they get too close. There is such an aura of frostiness radiating from him that Noctis cannot believe it is actually himself. He appears as such an angry young man. Is this how he was in the eyes of others?

After the compilation of all his sour emotions is finally over, Ardyn cuts to memories that were clearer in his mind. There is a fistfight he gets into with Gladio, and every time he lands a punch, Ardyn cackles in delight.

“Aren’t you such a violent thing? Look at that! You almost broke his jaw there.”

He had given Gladio a black eye that day. Noctis can’t remember why they had fallen out, yet it had somehow ended up like that. He regrets it, even more so now that he is forced to watch it again. He’d hurt his friend.

It doesn’t end there. There is a memory of him pushing Prompto, swearing at Ignis, throwing yet more punches at Gladio when their training lessons go badly. Every dismissive text he had sent them, every rude remark or comment or insult that had ever fallen past his lips. Every single cruel action he had ever taken in his whole life is presented to him now on the big screen. Noctis sits there, horrified, while Ardyn is indulging in it thoroughly. He applauds and cheers each time. It would be obnoxious if Noctis isn’t so bothered by what he is seeing. He half imagines Ardyn lounging back in a cinema seat, popcorn and drink in hand as he enjoys the show. Instead, he is standing behind him, breath hot and skin cold.

“Stop,” Noctis ends up whispering.

“Had enough?” Ardyn responds teasingly. “You can only blame yourself, my dear. You are the one who committed these atrocities.”

The king spins around, chains rattling as he pushes Ardyn away. He snarls, gums showing as he bares his teeth. “Only  _ you  _ would have the fucking snark to say that to me! Okay, sure, I fucked up a lot. Gods know how many times I’ve been a dick, but  _ you  _ telling  _ me  _ that? After everything you’ve done? You have a lot of fucking nerve, Ardyn. Rot in hell.”

It is ironic he would say such a thing. For they are both, quite literally, rotting in Hell. Ardyn laughs, a bitter edge to his tone.

Noctis expects a response, yet Ardyn says nothing. He merely stands there, in his fancy suit, staring at nothing. Thinking. Or studying? Who knows with him. The workings of his decaying brain are an enigma.

Without warning, Ardyn leaps forward to tackle him to the ground. The chains yank at his feet as he goes flying, landing on his back with an ‘oof’. The very breath is knocked out of him as Ardyn looms above, smiling menacingly, hand pulled back to form curled talons. Then, Noctis screams as he feels himself being pulled apart.

Ardyn tears sections of his flesh clean off, examining the pieces in between his fingers. On one side is his pale skin, the other dripping with blood. It is such a gruesome sight that Noctis tries to regurgitate, but there is nothing left in him. The feeling of nausea worsens as Ardyn yanks on his hair, pulling so hard that his stomach roils. Clumps of raven locks are tossed to the floor, nails scratching at his cheeks and gore bubbling up in his throat. Noctis chokes violently. He cannot hear anything but his own screams of anguish and Ardyn’s demented laughter. The man is a daemon. No, worse. This man was the Devil himself. He had to be. Noctis had looked into the eyes of many, many daemons in his life, and none came close to how Ardyn’s appeared. The being torturing him so brutally now, snapping the joints in his fingers and elbows and relishing at the howls he receives, is beyond a monster. The king wails for an infinity. It feels like months by the time Ardyn is bored, and the floor gives way once again beneath them.

Ardyn is gone, and Noctis feels himself falling.

Falling, falling, falling.

This chasm is endless. It is a horrible feeling—his stomach lurching as his limbs flail. He doesn’t know which direction he is facing anymore. All he knows is that he will continue to fall forever if he does not do anything, does not say anything.

A voice mocks him from inside his mind.

_ Pray unto me, and I will save you. _

It sounds like Ardyn, though he is not so merciful. He would not save him after doing so much to torment him. Noctis ignores it, continuing to fall into the endless pit. 

He screams at long last, “Make it stop!”

The voice echoes again.

_ Pray unto me. _

“You are no god!”

** _Pray unto me._ **

Noctis shakes his head, refusing to yield to such a monster. What if he does, and Ardyn lets him fall anyway? As the feeling grows torturous, he rolls over in midair so that he is falling face-up. He reaches out a hand to grasp at nothing. It is reminiscent of how Luna reached for him all those years ago, when the very being with him now had killed her. Except there is no beautiful flowers, or flowing blues and golds. All there is to see is darkness.

Horrible, evil darkness. He would do anything to feel any semblance of warmth or kindness, the sensation growing more desperate the longer he falls. 

So he closes his eyes, and prays.

He hits the ground heavily. Noctis feels his back break and heal all over again. He groans pitifully. It hurts, even as his spine reconstructs itself, but at least he is no longer suspended in the air.

What he finds when he gets up is strange indeed. There stands not one, but seven versions of himself. They blink in surprise at each other.

“What is this?” one says, or the one that Noctis assumes to be his real self. However, they are  _ all  _ his real self.

There is no response from himself, or Ardyn. Instead, he finds himself being whisked away by an unseen force and into a different section of Hell. Like jigsaw pieces that had been scattered and lost. Noctis cannot describe such an experience, only  _ know  _ it. Thus, he is forced to live out seven lives at once, each piece of his soul wandering around aimlessly. He does not question it any longer. Why should he, when this was his afterlife? Anything could theoretically happen now.

Each end up in actual places. Towns, cities, valleys. He feels like perhaps he has actually found somewhere habitable, though his hope diminishes when he sees how run down they are.

In each version, the architecture is crumbling. Broken cities, fallen skyscrapers, run down streets. The sky remains dark, but something is different. He is not alone.

People and daemons alike live here. They surround each of his seven selves, and there is something on their faces that makes him stop. A separate emotion, sin or vice twists their expressions into such an ugly sight that he recoils and looks away. It takes him a long time to figure out what exactly is occurring, and when he does, he then feels as if it was obvious the whole time. He has been split into each of the seven vices.

They are all as bad as each other. Noctis is unsure which one is more prevalent until he goes through them all.

The first he notices is sloth. His biggest vice, he supposes. While he feels suddenly tired, the land of the lazy does not greet him as he expected. What he imagined is a world of beds, with its inhabitants sleeping blissfully—not a rundown village where everyone is too sluggish to do anything. His sloth persona looks around. The walls are caked in moss, the houses in pieces while its owners lounge on the piles of bricks. They are too lazy to get up, to speak, to blink, to do  _ anything  _ at all. They are starving to death from never eating, lips dry from the lack of water they were too tired to seek out. The weariness hung in the air like a bad smell. As Sloth Noctis walks, his legs feel more tired with each step, but he knows he cannot stop. He could not stoop as low as the ones around him.

Despite that, he knows his efforts are in vain. There is the knowing matter of his destiny, his life pressing down upon him. He knows his friends and people are in danger, and he is just too lazy to do anything about it.

They rot away to nothing.

Greed is a shock to his system. This version of himself is met by daemons and humans fighting each other in the streets. They are not fighting to be violent, rather to steal each others belongings. Daemons rip the clothing from the humans and the humans steal the gold and jewellery the daemons hoard. It is a never-ending battle, and Noctis eyes the gold and clothing and whatever these selfish individuals have stolen. 

He  _ wants  _ it.

He doesn’t even know why! The king dives into the fray to snatch up whatever he can, not caring what it is, only knowing that he  _ has  _ to have it. This version of himself snarls when the less fortunate try and beg him for his belongings. It disgusts him, how he is acting, yet he cannot help it. He wraps himself on his personal pile of trash like a dragon and its jewel hoard. He kicks at whatever comes too close, not caring if it is a child or a dog. All that ferments in his heart is the desire of endless possession.

The worst of it is the paranoia. All the while, he is terrified that something would be stolen. The junk he collects is useless, but it means too much to own it. Noctis gnaws on his hand in worry. He’d rather perish a second time than let anyone steal from him!

Thus, Noctis breathes a sigh of relief when he then jumps to what looks like his gluttony persona. The trash pile of gold and clothing scraps disappears, and while he is not so worried about stealing, he does feel… something.

A hunger. He is hungry.

For what? He doesn’t know, and he doesn’t really care. He feels like his stomach has turned into a pit as he then wanders around the ruined city for something to eat. The people around him are thin. Very thin, ribcages jutting out from their sides as they whimper. It is like the horseman of famine has flown over the land, weighing scales in hand as he rips the nourishment from the earth. The ground is barren and dry. Some people are even licking at it in the desperate need to sate themselves.

When Noctis stumbles into a bar, he sees others have a selection of alcohol and cigarettes. Yet, no matter how hard they try, no matter how hard they press the cigarettes to their lips, they cannot indulge in their desires. Noctis feels thirst pull at his throat.

Further in, there are humans that are as fat as dualhorns. They are surrounded by food—cake, bread, meat, anything one could think of. They shove it into their mouths, but even when they look about ready to burst, they keep eating. Noctis sneaks past and takes what he can to get rid of the irritating hunger that ate at him. He takes a fisful of cake, sinking his teeth into the dry substance. It doesn’t taste of anything. In fact, it is disgusting, though Noctis is so hungry he eats it anyway. He eats so much he vomits for the upteenth time during his stay in Hell. He feels himself getting full, but the hunger never goes away no matter how much he consumes.

He finds himself in another persona, and feels glad because he was nearly about to ingest his own sick.  _ Gross,  _ he thinks in disgust. Why was he acting in such a way?

This new place confuses him. The surroundings are bizarre. Instead of crumbling buildings, everything seems relatively normal. It is the people that are the frightening aspect of this place.

Their faces are twisted into expressions of scorn. Their eyes shift, flickering at each other in disdain. Some scoff as they brush against another. Scoffs turn into snarls, and the feeling of hatred is prevalent.

This had to be envy. No other emotion matched its sourness. Noctis feels his own lips turn down into a sneer as he glares at those around him. He hates them. He hates them all, for their looks, for their possessions, for their wealth, for whatever his mind could imagine that they have. He perceives them as being the luckiest people in the world, and he detests them for it.

But most of all, he hates himself.

The scowl only disappears when he catches sight of familiar blond hair. Noctis’ heart jumps up to his neck, and he is suddenly happy to see a friendly face.

“Prompto!” he calls out. Could it really be him?!

If it is, that would mean  _ he  _ is dead too. Sadness overwhelms Noctis as he jogs forward to meet his friend. Prompto’s back is turned, hands shoved into his pockets as he kicks at the floor. He is keeping to himself near a wall. Noctis holds his breath as he reaches out. He tries his hardest to push away the negativity festering inside him, too happy to see Prompto again. Even if it is an illusion, he was going to enjoy it.

“Dude?” he whispers, flinching when Prompto whirls around. There is nothing daemonic about his appearance, but his eyes are furious. The most bitter jealousy Noctis has ever laid eyes on burns within him. He’d never seen Prompto look so full of  _ loathing  _ before.

“Get the fuck away from me,” he spits, pushing him away. “I don’t want anything to do with you! What, have you come to laugh at me?”

“Huh? No, no! Of course not! I’m your friend, why would I—”

The blond laughs to cut him off. “Sure, right. As if you’re not here to make fun of the fact I’m so much less than you. Rub it in, prince. Flaunt your gaudy clothes and fancy tech all you want. You’re good at that.”

A pang of hurt stabs his heart. Noctis backs away, confused. “...Prom?”

He then notices his wristband is missing. He is dressed like he always had back in their twenties, no beard or dry skin in sight. He could have appeared completely normal if it wasn’t for such hatred in his eyes. He spits at Noctis’ feet and turns away. His fingers grip at his exposed barcode, scratching at it in the vain attempt to get rid of it. His injuries just heal themselves. He screams in frustration, yanking at his hair and falling to his knees. Noctis wants to help him, but Prompto is too feral to allow him close.

He is heartbroken to see his dear friend like this. He wants all the pain to stop. Prompto—no, the daemon—bangs its head against the wall.

“Go away! Go away! Go away!”

The chanting follows him even as Noctis ends up in another body. The daemon is out of sight, though he knows he will never truly rid himself of it.

He is somewhere new and lavish this time.

He is not outside, but rather in a building. The sofas are made of plush pink leather and the floor is carpet. Despite the intact decor, Noctis has a  _ very  _ bad feeling about this one.

His assumption is correct. When he tries to exit the room, he is met with a corridor. Sounds of desire and frequent moaning come from behind the doors. Noctis grimaces when he realises he is now in his lust body. Well, he  _ would  _ grimace, yet the same desire is now beginning to hound him. He runs down the hallway and down the stairs before he does something he regrets.

Except there is no end in sight. No matter where he turns, Noctis ends up in more hallways, in front of doors where unspeakable acts are taking place. The worst part of all is he  _ wants  _ to open them. He wants to see, but he doesn’t let himself. He falls to his knees and buries his head in his hands.

The doors fly open. A force keeps them there, and Noctis is met with the sight of horrors. He screams as he sees people tearing themselves apart, fucking each other to literal death in the frenzy of desire. Blood drips from the beds and howls of dismay and longing echo around him. If there are no people, there are daemons, and if there are no daemons, there are animals. Children. The most graphic displays that Noctis can never think up no matter how hard he tries. The recollection of Ardyn forcing him to watch that porn flashback creeps back into his mind. He can quite clearly see people being molested, and he finds himself wanting to see more. 

No, he tells himself. He is not this kind of person! However, when he turns, he is met with the same sight. The daemons call to him, tempting him to join them. He could never. Not in Hell, not anywhere.

“Go on, Noct,” a soft voice whispers to him from behind. “You are a king, are you not? Take what’s yours.”

Ignis looms over him like a tower. Noctis gasps, horrified by the perverted grin on his face. What is  _ Ignis  _ doing here?!

“Ignis?”

“Indeed. Well, what is your decision? Are you willing to give in to your desires at long last? Do not be afraid, Noct. Everyone has them. You can hide it all you want, but your lust for certain things will never derail.”

His voice is revolting to listen to. Noctis covers his ears and runs for it. He will not stoop this low. He might have given in to the others, but not this! Anything but this! He can hear Ignis chase after him, long legs easily catching up to drag him into one of the rooms. He howls and protests, digging his heels into the carpet. His strength means nothing down here. In the room, an exceedingly attractive man and woman await him. They are so beautiful that Noctis knows in advance they are daemons, however Ignis has locked the door. 

They tempt him further. Noctis tries to escape, but they pull him close. When he jumps out of his lust body and into the sixth installment, he is forever grateful. He does not want to know what would have happened if he remained there.

The next one is obvious. Blood and guts litter the land, a deserted warzone. Guns, swords, rifles, whatever weapon he can think of is in sight. Thousands upon thousands of dead bodies were piled on top of each other. The most putrid smell Noctis had ever came in contact with assaults his nose, and he slaps a hand over his face to block it out.

He is in the world of wrath this time. There is nothing besides death and violence here. Some are still alive, but they are so hellbent on killing each other that they do not notice his presence. Noctis slips on by, trying to climb as far away from the corpses as possible. The sky is red, but it is such a dark red it is not much different from the black he had become so accustomed to. He holds back a cringe as he realises the sky is red because its clouds are filled with blood instead of rain. It smells so awful that it is all he can think about.

How many of these vices are left? Just one, Noctis thinks to himself. Just one more, and it would be over. Or would it, realistically? He was in Hell. Was it simply going to repeat, or was he forever doomed to live out each of these seven lives at the same time? He cannot decide if any were more tolerable than the other. He tries to convince himself that lust is the worst, and maybe sloth is the best considering it's his biggest vice, though he knows they cannot be compared. They are all as bad as each other.

He doesn’t resist when another familiar figure dives for him. He already knows it is Gladio by the time he is on the ground, met with the vision of fangs and claws tearing at his throat. Noctis screams, but ‘Gladio’ doesn’t stop. The daemon adopting his Shield’s likeness tears him apart with such ferocity that he is reduced to scraps of flesh in seconds. The world of wrath is left behind him, his body regenerating so that it could be torn into pieces anew. Gladio chases him forevermore as Noctis awakens in the final stage of his seven lives.

Finally.

He lies there for a long time. He is so tired, so exhausted by the torment he is experiencing.

The last sin is a mix of all the others. The ruler of debauchery, the king of immorality: pride awaits him at the end of a road. It is dark, only lit by flickering street lights. Noctis does not want to press forth, but he knows he has no choice. He has to finish this. He has to come to terms with his sins. 

Sloth might have been his biggest vice, yet it is common knowledge that pride is the regarded as the worst. Noctis is silent as he ends up at the end of the road to look up at a building. A castle. Not the citadel he had known in Insomnia, but a castle built upon the backs of others. In the stone, Noctis can see the suffering of all the people he had ever stepped on or looked down upon in his life. Their frozen expressions of pain are forever encased to taunt him. He shuts his eyes, drowning it out, before entering.

Of course, Ardyn is there. Still in the dark suit, he nods to Noctis as if he is an old friend. 

“Fancy meeting you here,” the king says dryly. “Funny, I always imagined your vice being gluttony.”

“And why is that?” Ardyn presses, curiosity raising his eyebrow.

“You’re always driven by your desires. I guess that could come under greed or lust, but I dunno. Maybe pride is more fitting for you, seeing as how you only care about your own wellbeing.”

The Accursed pouts childishly. An act to mock him, no doubt. “A tad cruel there, Majesty. Why, I only saught to take back what was rightfully mine in the first place. Nonetheless, we are kings, Noct. We are  _ born  _ to be prideful.”

Noctis does not want to listen to his blathering. He is tired enough as it is. Ardyn stops when he falls to the floor, hands cradling his knees as he leans his head back.

“What now, then?” he says. “You gonna torture me some more? If the answer is yes, then you’re too late to be original.”

“Always blaming me, rather than yourself. Perhaps pride is your biggest vice after all.”

“Don’t fucking start,” Noctis snarls.

Ardyn sniffs and turns his head away. “I am merely stating facts.”

The king gets to his feet in a fit of rage. He has had enough of this man. Marching forth, he grabs Ardyn by the collar and yanks him down to his level—cursing the fact he is  _ still  _ shorter than him despite the leap in age he had made. Ardyn does not respond other than adorn that infuriating smirk he loves to wear so much. Noctis shakes him several times before shouting in his face.

“I’m up for another fight, if that’s what you want. I gave you the chance to rest in peace, but you do this instead! Will it ever end, Ardyn?”

“There is no need to be so aggressive,” says Ardyn, gently removing his fingers from his suit. “We will both be here for a very long time, so why not come to learn our places here?”

Noctis snorts dismissively. “I don’t want  _ anything  _ to do with you.”

Then, Ardyn’s smirk grows larger. Normally this would be a normal expression for him, but the twinkle in his eye unnerves Noctis. There iss something about the way the malice pours down his face, seeping into the cracks around his eyes and the pores of his cheeks. He is up to something.

“You didn’t think it would be  _ just  _ me, did you?”

There it is. Noctis stiffens.

“What?”

“Hell is quite a vast place,” Ardyn continues, and saunters away like he always does. He moves to the back of the room, just before a wooden door. “There exists many, many souls here. At least twenty times the amount on Eos. That includes some people you may have heard of.”

“Ardyn, if you have any of my friends here, I swear to the fucking gods—”

Ardyn holds a finger to his lips, effectively cutting him off. “Not quite. Have no fear, little king. In fact, I think you’ll be quite intrigued by our special guest for this evening.”

The door drags itself open as Ardyn waves a hand. It scrapes against the stone floor, the handle creaking with apparent age. A chilly, musty draft blows out and ruffles Noctis’ hair. He had frozen on the spot, now suddenly scared of who—or what—is behind that door. 

When nothing walks out, Ardyn sighs and clicks his fingers a few times. “Oh, wake  _ up. _ I will not have you sleep through our family reunion.”

“Family reunion?” Noctis echoes, clenching his teeth as Ardyn casts a flame within his hand. The Accursed grins in confirmation as he sends the fire to light up the candles within the dark room. There, in the centre, is a figure draped in chains and nails. It is nothing monstrous, certainly not a daemon, and not someone Noctis recognises right away, but the sight sends shivers down his spine.

“Noctis, I would like you to meet your great ancestor, and my dear brother, Somnus Lucis Caelum.”


	2. Dolor

**** Perhaps what is most jarring about seeing his extremely distance relative before him is not the unfamiliarity, but how _ recognisable _ Noctis finds him. Somnus, eyes as blue as his own and hair in straggly raven locks, stares right back. There is a hollow expression keeping his face blank. His lips are dry and cracked and it appears they had been sewn shut recently.

If what Ardyn says is true, than that means Noctis is faced with the Founder King himself. The first and the last of the Lucis Caelum line, standing directly across from each other.

Perhaps it shouldn’t surprise him that Somnus was long dead—2000 years dead, in fact. The real question was, why was he_ here? _

“Ardyn, why is—” Noctis begins to ask before Ardyn laughs in amusement.

“What, you wish to inquire as to why the Founder King is here? It is quite simple.” The Accursed’s grin warps into a scowl as he kicks Somnus over the head, sneering at the grunt of pain he receives. Somnus does not respond other than that. He sits there, a mangled heap of chains and bruised flesh, and glues his gaze to the floor. “This man is a fraud. The scum of the earth, stewing in his own jealousy as he robs his own family to sate his desires. While we do have plenty of time to discuss his unlawful past, I would prefer to move on to other things.”

Noctis turns to Ardyn and hisses, “I suppose you dragged him here too?”

He purses his lips. “Oh, it wasn’t difficult. Do not be fooled by history’s false dictations. Somnus is no being of light.”

“I don’t care about whatever vendetta you have against him,” Noctis says. Ardyn cocks an eyebrow. “Let him go, Ardyn. Let us both go.”

“You think he does not play a massive role in this?”

He knows it is futile to ask for release, and Noctis doesn’t respond right away to Ardyn’s question. He begins to walk circles around Somnus. Noctis stays well back in case Ardyn tries something.

“To tell the truth, Somnus hasn’t taken well to prison life. He has not been here for very long, but by the gods, he did not handle it nearly as well as you did. You can give yourself a pat on the back for surpassing the strength of the Founder King, Noct.”

“And how long as he been here?”

Somnus ignores the pair’s bickering. His eyes are hollow and glassy. He seems to be unaware of what transpires around him, ignorant to the way Ardyn pulls at his chains or steps on his fingers. The only thing he might do is wince in pain every now and again.

Ardyn shrugs and twirls his wrist, pretending to think about his response. “Who knows? Time does not exist here. Maybe a week. Maybe a century.”

Noctis rolls his eyes at Ardyn’s condescending tone. He has had enough of this. It is quite clear this is some sort of psychological trick that Ardyn is playing, as those always were his favourites. The Chosen knows that simply scorching him alive some few times wouldn’t be enough to quench his never-ending lust for revenge. He probably wouldn’t be satisfied even when there was nothing left of Noctis to torture besides from a heap of bones. Then again, Ardyn had said a soul never dies, did he not? Would he continue to mangle Noctis’ own soul? Or is this current form simply his soul solidified? 

Thinking about it hurts his head. Noctis decides he has had enough of the endless prattle and turns on his heel. His heart aches for Somnus, though there is nothing he can do.

“Leaving so soon?” he hears Ardyn call out to him.

“I’ve got an appointment,” Noctis replies sarcastically. Ardyn chuckles at his joke and falls into silence. Noctis perhaps thinks he’s going to let him go, but the grand doors slam shut and blend into stone, trapping him inside.

Typical.

Ardyn is right behind him as he turns around. Noctis only just manages to contain his gasp. “You still have your seventh sin to face, Your Majesty.”

“No—” Noctis cries out, but he is already on the floor.

Chains wrap around his wrists. There are vicious spikes on the insides, piercing themselves into his flesh to further contain him. Noctis howls as his blood turns the ground slick and coppery. There is so much blood that he finds himself slipping, and he thinks how that can be physically possible before he realises—ah, of course—he is in Hell. An invisible force, or perhaps it’s Ardyn, drags him back to where Somnus sits. The man hasn’t looked up at all. As Noctis writhes before him, he calls out his name in the vain hope he might respond. He doesn’t.

The chains have melded themselves to the floor by themselves. Noctis tries not to make any more noise, because Ardyn is sniggering at every little gasp of pain he lets out. He will _ not _ give him the satisfaction anymore.

“Now, do pay attention. This is quite amusing,” says Ardyn as he abandons him for the other. His hands trail over Somnus’ hair, caked in grease and oil, and sighs. “Oh, brother. How you have fallen from your high horse. Just look at how easy you are to manipulate…”

Somnus moves his head in compliance as Ardyn tilts his jaw upwards. His eyes remain as glassy as ever. Noctis watches on in shock. What had Ardyn _ done _ to him?!

“Don’t touch him!”

The evil within Ardyn coils in pleasure at Noctis’ protest. He turns, hand still holding Somnus’ head up, and smiles. “Already attached? Cute.”

The collar and restraints fall away as Ardyn undoes the spell. Noctis is still pinned to the floor, but he watches carefully as Somnus is freed. The skin that had been concealed under the cuffs are an angry raw red. He winces at the sight of them. For a long time, Somnus does nothing, completely unresponsive to all except Ardyn. As for _ him, _ he is content to watch his great nephew squirm from the way his wrists are almost cut in half. His beard does a good job of masking his cringes of pain, especially compared to when he was younger, although he is trying oh so hard not to show any of it.

The daemons roar to life. The Scourge, only vanquished from the physical plane, lives on in Ardyn's body. It pours from his lips like a poisoned waterfall.

Noctis is aware of this, making sure to move out of the way as the substance falls to the ground and sears holes right through the stone. He does not want to know how it would feel on his flesh.

“I’ve spent a long time thinking about how to go about this vice,” Ardyn begins to ramble, “but I’ve finally come to a conclusion. Dismantling one’s pride can be a difficult task. So, I thought, what is the most dominating, humiliating act one can inflict upon the arrogant?”

“The only arrogant one here is _ you,” _ spits Noctis.

“Your tongue is far too loose, boy,” Ardyn shoots back. The smirk has gone in favour of a frown. “It is a good thing I’m about to hold it for you.”

Getting down on his knees, Ardyn finally comes close to him. Noctis glares back in defiance. Looking at the face of this monster, he ignores the beauty he has conjured in order to hide his true ugliness, and is tempted to spit at him before Ardyn catches his chin. A moment of intimacy, much like when he had forced him to rewatch his past. He shudders.

Noctis thinks Ardyn is about to say something. He doesn’t, however.

“What are you—” he tries to ask before Ardyn kisses him.

_ Ardyn is kissing him. _

What the _ fuck. _ Horrified, Noctis freezes before he can act, vulnerable to the lips against his own. They are surprisingly cold, whatever warmth Ardyn ever had chilled right down to ice. His grip on his jaw becomes bruising when Noctis recovers and tries to lash his head away. The feeling of a tongue sliding past to run across his teeth is enough to send him hurling himself backwards, yanking the chains and almost breaking his bones in the process.

“Fucking get _ off _ me!” he says in a fit of agony and shock—shock at the kiss, and agony from the cuffs.

The Accursed lifts a finger to wipe a bead of saliva Noctis had left on the corner of his mouth. He appears pleased with himself.

“Even after all of that, you still taste _ alive. _ You truly are a marvel, Noct.”

His words are perverted—_ disgusting. _ Noctis would scrub the inside of his mouth out if he was able. Instead he tries to rub the feeling off on his shoulder. 

“What the hell is wrong with you?” he bites off, sticking his tongue out to rid himself of the bitter flavour.

“That’s the answer to my little problem. The most humiliating act that can be inflicted on the arrogant is this~”

Ardyn attacks his mouth again, but this time Noctis is quick enough to pull away before he can lock their lips. Unfortunately, Ardyn simply moves lower and chews on his neck instead. Noctis groans in disgust.

He thinks Ardyn is murmuring something, though at this point he has tuned out. Noctis squeezes his eyes shut at the vile feeling of teeth scraping along his skin followed by the same tongue that had violated him moments before. Ardyn also has hands gripping onto his clothes, nails pulling at the fabric and keeping him there. They find themselves in the awkward position of Noctis hunched over, wrists still restrained and Ardyn pushing him backwards. The pull of the spikes digging in is enough to make him whimper. He feels the vibration of a chuckle against him shortly afterwards.

When Ardyn mercifully pulls away, Noctis turns his head to the side and spits. The saliva only dribbles down his chin instead.

_ Gods, _ he thinks. _ This truly is Hell. _

His breathing is fast paced, yet stops when Ardyn has a grip on his collar. The buttons are already popping off as he shouts out.

“What, you didn’t think I’d be satisfied with just that, did you?” Ardyn teases.

Noctis is no fool. He’s already seen such vile acts being committed in his lust persona. He knows exactly what is to come next if he stays here. He’d never thought Ardyn the type, but why should he be surprised at this point? This man was capable of anything and everything. He’d murdered countless of innocents, slaughtered his friends and family, doomed the world unto darkness for ten years and rendered the human race near-extinct, so why should Noctis think he _ wasn’t _ capable of this?

The thought riles him to his core. The very suggestion of such a thing causes bile to burn his throat. By the Astrals, throw him the fire again, anything but _ this. _

Despite his objections, there is not much he can do to stop the royal blazer and shirt being torn off his back and discarded next to him. Noctis thrashes in vain. His bare shoulders are exposed, and he suddenly becomes aware of how cold this castle is. 

“Virgin royalty,” Ardyn drawls, running his fingers down Noctis’ skin. “A tad cliché, don’t you think?”

Noctis flushes bright red. He’d question how Ardyn knew such an intimate fact though what would be the point? 

He hisses as nails are dragged down the dip of his spine. While Noctis cannot see, he can certainly feel the warm blood pooling at the base of his spine and soaking into his trousers. He wriggles to rid himself of the sensation, but Ardyn does him the favour of removing those too. They are ripped away, along with his socks and shoes—articles of clothing he doesn’t know why he was given in the first place. Maybe Ardyn wanted the satisfaction of taking them away from him. It definitely did the job, seeing as the sick fuck was grinning as Noctis yanked on the cuffs until his hands went numb. A deranged sob broke out as the black underwear was pulled down his hips.

“You don’t have to _ do _ this.”

There is a hum of acknowledgement as the flimsy scrap of fabric is thrown aside. Noctis, on his knees with his elbows keeping him up, shifts his legs so that he isn’t exposing himself entirely. It is beyond embarrassing.

“Oh, no, I know that.” Ardyn stops to place a hand on his head, in an almost gentle manner. “I don’t have to do it, but I _ want _ to, dear Noct.”

“No,” Noctis moans as he presses his forehead to the floor.

Ardyn gets up and walks around him. Noctis is shivering now, terrified of how painful the ordeal would be. Logically, he knows it probably wouldn’t be as bad as drowning in a lake of fire had, or being torn apart twice over, though it is more so the _ intimacy _ he is afraid of. As Ardyn had said, he is untouched. Noctis wouldn’t call himself a romantic man, and hadn’t expected this inevitable event to be ‘special’, but he didn’t want to share it with _ Ardyn _ of all people. This was the man that had ruined his life. Ruined others’ lives. Ruined _ everyone’s _ lives.

Time goes on. Noctis eventually opens his eyes as Ardyn continues to refrain from making a move. What is he doing?

He is standing next to Somnus. The Founder King has remained so silent that Noctis forgot he was even there. Ardyn has both hands on either side of his face, cupping his cheeks delicately. He is murmuring something that is not decipherable, so Noctis is forced to wait it out.

“However, I have something different planned.”

Ardyn’s tone is dangerous. He turns back to Noctis, Somnus’ head still within his hands. “I want to personally show you the effects of Hell on a more sensitive mind. I wasn’t lying when I said Somnus hadn’t taken prison life well.”

With a snap of his fingers, Ardyn steps away. In that moment, Somnus’ entire demeanor changes.

A growl rumbles from deep in his chest. His once hollow eyes harden, and his teeth grow visible as he curls his lip into a vicious snarl. Even at the awkward angle Noctis is lying at, he can see that Somnus has grown deranged. He is not a human anymore. Hell—or Ardyn—has done something terrible to him. Somnus, nails scratching at the ground and teeth gnashing, was more akin to an animal than a member of the Lucis Caelum line.

“What did you _ do _ to him?” Noctis’ question weakly floats across the room. Ardyn snorts inelegantly.

“Nothing,” comes the nonchalant reply. “I only loosened his collar a tad. Now, Somnus, you’ve been sitting there an awful long time. Why don’t you take your frustration out on the specimen I have provided for you?”

Somnus lashes his head to the side, now taking full notice of Noctis’ presence. There is a hungry look in his eye as he clambers over, cuffs still attached to his wrists, only lengthened enough so he can move.

Noctis gasps as he feels Somnus touch his back. He is confused for a moment, wondering why Ardyn had commanded Somnus to act in such a way before it hit him.

_ No. _

“No, no no no no no _ no,” _ he warbles. “No, Ardyn, you can’t—”

His suspicions confirm themselves as Somnus sinks his teeth into Noctis’s shoulder. He cries out.

“What are you speaking of, Majesty? _ I’m _ not doing anything.”

_ “Ardyn!” _

The Accursed makes himself comfortable, leaning up against the wooden door that had imprisoned his brother. One leg is swung over the other, and his hands are clasped together as if he is about to watch the movie of a lifetime. Noctis screams as Somnus scrabbles at him, dirty nails digging in and leaving scratches wherever possible. He pushes him down so that his face is smushed against the floor.

Noctis looks up at Ardyn desperately.

“Please, _ please, _ don’t make him do this—”

He can feel Somnus pawing at his back. He’s moved around now, and the shuffling of clothes is only a reminder of what’s to come. Noctis squeezes his eyes shut, struggling one last time. It is useless. He is trapped, and there is nothing he can do about it. Somnus will not be reasoned with. His eyes are only focused on obeying Ardyn’s orders. Noctis violently flinches as he feels something hard touch the base of spine, and he does not what to acknowledge what it is. He twists himself around to try and get away, but Somnus grips his waist and holds him still. He wails.

“Don’t. Fucking don’t. I swear to the Astrals, Ardyn, I’ll fucking—”

Somnus pushes in. Eyes rolling back into his skull, Noctis lets out a guttural scream.

“You’ll what, Majesty?” he only vaguely hears Ardyn say, because the _ pain _ is too horrific.

The push and drag tears at his insides in the span of three seconds. After Somnus forces his way back inside, Noctis is thrusted further up the floor and the stone leaves red gashes on the side of his face. The scream turns into a choked gasp and he begins to convulse. He no longer sees or hears anything, just _ feels. _

And, by the gods, he wished he couldn’t.

Somnus is merciless. After becoming accustomed to the gruesome act, he begins to pick up the pace. It is grueling and torturous, each thrust feeling like he was tearing off a layer of skin each time. He makes no sound, only does what he is told. Ardyn is sneering.

This, Noctis thinks, is somehow worse than everything else he has had to endure. It is worse than the fire. It is worse than falling for eternity. It is worse than having his ‘friends’ rip him into pieces. It is worse than the six sins prior to this. As Noctis cries out, throat frothy from blood, he realises that he truly _ is _ in Hell. He is at the mercy of Ardyn and his deranged brother. Noctis pounds the floor once to endure the agony, but it does nothing for him. Nothing will distract him from it. Not crying, not pleading, nothing. 

He doesn’t notice the tears until Ardyn strokes his face.

“Shh,” he whispers. “This is merely the deconstruction of your pride.”

“S-stop.” Noctis chokes on his own red saliva.

Ardyn kneels down and lifts his head up. Noctis is too weak to resist, and allows himself to be placed into Ardyn’s lap. The stroking of his hair feels nice, though he can barely focus on it. Not with Somnus _ fucking _ him like this.

“Good boy, Noct. You’re handling it so _ well.” _

Noctis buries his head into Ardyn’s trouser leg and bites his tongue as Somnus leaves vicious marks on his thighs. Tears flow down, soaking the fabric until it became black. 

“Please,” Noctis says in one last ditch attempt, “please, j-just let me go. Ardyn, I c-can’t—”

“You can. You can and you must.” The hand tilts his chin so that his face is no longer hidden. Noctis is sure he looks a mess but he doesn’t care. He whimpers, muffling himself by chewing on his lip before he notices Ardyn removing his hand to grasp his belt buckle. Noctis watches through lidded eyes as he undoes it and the belt slides off. A sudden hardness presses against his cheek and he lurches himself backwards.

“No!”

Ardyn is too quick. He grabs Noctis’ head once more and yanks him up so he is on his hands and knees. It is hard to stay like that seeing as his legs are weak, but Ardyn’s grip is so strong Noctis is afraid he’ll rip his hair out. 

He responds to the hardened erection by locking his jaws and sealing his lips in a tight line. He will_ not _ do this!

“You are surely not stupid enough to disobey me by now,” Ardyn growls before shoving his fingers past Noctis’ lips and against his teeth. It takes some effort to pry them apart, but when he does, he forces his cock inside. 

Noctis gags.

Of course, his first reaction is to bite down. Yet, even as he does that, Ardyn does not flinch. He does not howl, does not recoil in pain, only laughs. With one hand holding Noctis’ hair and the other keeping his jaw steady, he begins to face-fuck him with almost as much vigor as Somnus. His hands scrabble at the floor, shoulders almost dislocating as he strains to push Ardyn away. He is torn between fighting off both him and Somnus, yet they are too strong.

“There we are, lovely,” says Ardyn.

Wishing he could respond with a snarky comment, Noctis opens his eyes to glare at him. The intense gaze only does so much, and Ardyn chuckles. He is at least being somewhat generous in not forcing himself so far down that Noctis cannot breathe.

At least, not at first.

It gets worse. Ardyn is fucking his mouth so hard that Noctis does not breathe at all. He tries pushing against his cock with his tongue, but that gains him compliments instead of complaints. He cannot thrash his head away because Ardyn has too tight a hold. From the waist down, he is paralysed from the force of Somnus violating him. He is sure half an hour must have passed by now. Or even an hour. However long he counts, it never _ ends. _

Ardyn finishes first, groaning lowly as he nears his climax. Noctis whimpers and tries to pull away only to choke on the semen that fills his throat. Ardyn refuses to pull out until he swallows, so he complies.

Noctis wants to die all over again. He retches once he is free, bashing his forehead on the cold stone to rid himself of such a traumatic experience.

Noctis squeaks, oblivious to Somnus letting out a shuddering gasp as he, too, finishes. He only becomes aware when he is tugged backwards and held to the Founder King’s chest in a twisted embrace. Somnus’ arm is around his neck, and Noctis swears for a second he feels a kiss at the side of his jaw.

Disgusting.

“How do you feel now, hm?” Ardyn asks. “I’m sure your pride has been taken down a peg or two.”

He doesn’t respond. Somnus is ordered to move away, so he does and leaves Noctis to collapse in a heap. He returns to his previous stance without a word. Perhaps he is entirely unaware of what he had just done. Noctis finds that he doesn’t care, and turns his face away so that neither of them witness his shame.

Unfortunately, Ardyn isn’t finished.

Noctis flinches again as he is touched. “Get off.”

The spiked cuffs disappear. The pain does not vanish, but it is a relief not to have them chewing at his wrists anymore. The stone floor also vanishes, and Noctis finds himself looking upwards at a lavish ceiling. The castle has disappeared.

Now, he is in a bedroom. It is not quite like the one he had visited in his lust persona, but in a place he strangely finds familiar. Almost comforting.

He lets out a gasp as he realises he is in his _ father’s _ bedroom. Back in the citadel. In Insomnia.

“Well done,” comes a deep voice.

Ardyn is there, typically, at the foot of the bed. He claps his hands twice. “You’ve successfully gone through each of your seven vices. I congratulate you, Noct.”

Noctis thumps his head against the pillow. He groans. “Are you done yet?”

There is an amused chortle. 

“I think you fail to understand that the afterlife is eternal.”

This time, Ardyn does away with all of his clothing. Noctis would resist if he had any strength left. He whines a tad, trying to edge his way off the bed seeing as he is not restrained, though Ardyn is on him quickly. Body littered with scars and distorted marks, Ardyn presses against him fully. His weight is suffocating. The bed creaks, and Noctis is suddenly aware that he and Ardyn are together, completely bare, in such a lewd position. It didn’t seem so bad when he was clothed before, but this was _ perverted. _ Well, as perverted as it could be compared to what had transpired moments ago. At this point Noctis is losing his sense of being.

“Pride is a complicated thing,” Ardyn babbles on as he always did, amidst running his hands everywhere he can touch. He leaves bruises and digs his nails in to create crescent-shaped holes in Noctis’ flesh. The Chosen kicks his legs out, but they are wrapped snugly around Ardyn’s waist so that he cannot push him off. Is this position worse? Is any of it comparable?

Butterfly kisses are left on his neck—almost soft in nature. Noctis’ mewling echoes against the tiled floor as Ardyn crushes their mouths together. He kisses him for so long that his lips become red and swollen, tongue tingling from the constant invasive force. His entire body is dominated a second time, and now, Noctis truly is screaming.

He thinks about his life. Memories, both old and new, bad and good, crash over him like a tidal wave. What had he done to deserve this? What had he done to anger the gods so? Why is Ardyn such a cursed creature, and why was he allowed to live despite the chaos he had caused? The thoughts cause him to gag, but it is drowned out again by the ferocious pounding in his lower half. Noctis tries not to look. He does not want to come to terms that this is happening in his father’s room—or at least, a mockery of it. 

His eyes slide over to the window. The sky is dark red, and a glowing cross mocks him from behind the glass panes. Noctis cannot tell if the cross is glowing because it is on fire or not, and he cannot bring himself to care. Why should he? He’s dead.

“If only everyone could see you now,” Ardyn says breathlessly, coming close to his climax. Noctis shuts his eyes again.

He is only dimly aware of Ardyn getting up after finishing and leaving the room. He does not even say goodbye, or spit out a snarky remark. It is out of character for him.

Noctis finds himself alone at long last. No more torture, no more teasing. Just himself and his own pain.

He only moves after hours pass. The cross in the sky does not shift from its position, and Noctis eventually limps over to the window to stare at it. It is the only light in this place, other than the fire and magma. It glows not a warm colour, but a colour of blood and death. And, despite that, Noctis finds it comforting. A hand shakily reaches out to touch the glass. The cross looms above silently.

“Why?” he mutters. Mostly to himself. 

Of course, the cross can’t answer. Noctis turns away from it and sinks to his knees. He regrets doing so, because he is still suffering from the rough treatment of Ardyn and Somnus.

Only a delirious cult leader would imagine such things. This was something that would only occur in a psychopath’s dream. Yet Noctis has lived it. Or, perhaps, the more accurate term is that he experienced it. It still didn’t seem any less real. After a long time of thinking about it, Noctis laughs.

A crazed, maniacal laugh that fills the room. He laughs so hard tears spring forth from the corner of his eyes and his throat burns. Noctis rips at his hair and claws at his face. He is sick of _existing._ He just wants to rest, to fade from the world. The Astrals owed him _ that _at the very least.

As he is so busy cackling, he fails to notice the cross sinks lower in the sky. It floats to the window, and when Noctis feels its warmth he gasps.

It is not like the raging fires he has experienced beforehand. This is a gentle warmth, a warmth that felt more like a hug or the heat of a log fire. It is soothing and Noctis stands up to get closer to it.

“Noctis,” a voice calls.

Does he know that voice? Noctis isn’t sure. He doesn’t care either way, and leans his forehead against the glass pane. The cross is just outside.

“Noctis, come home.”

“As if,” he mumbles under his breath. Is he hallucinating now?

“Come home,” the voice repeats. It is only then he makes himself look out of the window. The cross is still there, but is glowing a soft white now. It is such a gentle colour he sighs peacefully. Such a contrast compared to the bloody sky and burning charcoal littering the ground. Is this another trick? Is Ardyn doing this? Is he feigning hope only to rip it out from underneath him again? He wouldn’t be surprised.

Now, Noctis would turn away at this point, but the warmth feels so good he can’t. It is so _ peaceful! _

A pair of hands, small and delicate, reach out and cup his face. The tears begin to roll again. It is nothing like Ardyn’s touch. Noctis leans into it, savouring every second as he allows the sheer amount of _ love _ to engulf him. He'd never felt such a wonderful force in his life. He thinks he sees golden hair and a beautiful smile, though the tears stain his vision. It doesn’t matter. All he wants to do is feel the kindness after what felt like eons of misery.

“Come home to us.”

He thinks, yes, he does know that voice. A childhood friend, or perhaps a relative. Noctis blinks away the tears and nods.

Thus, he falls into the light.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i fucking cried writing the ending and i hate myself. it's up to you whether you wish to imagine noctis went to heaven or came back to life, but i am legit sobbing over this. i don't know why i wrote this considering i outright refuse to watch ffxv's ending because my borderline brain can't fucking handle it. im so sorry baby boy you deserved better and lets pretend this didnt happen :')
> 
> anyway, i'll be going on a short hiatus. i need to do college work, because i'm so badly behind. i'll be back in a few weeks however. happy halloween!


End file.
